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Fey Accompli: Most of Her Viewers Skipped Palin's Debate

Media-research group Integrated Media Management Inc., which tracks viewership of media on TV and mobile devices, sent a study on the audience for Tina Fey’s impressions of Sarah Palin. First, the TV-wonk news, which contends that most of the audience did not watch the skits on live TV: Among all the people who saw at [...]

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Office Watch: Lemme Hear Your Body Talk

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, watch Cookie Monster Sings “Chocolate Rain” on YouTube, then watch last night’s The Office.

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A Different House of Mouse

QUBO NBC has signed a deal to bring one of the most awesome preschooler’s cartoons ever, Maisy, to its Qubo kids’ cartoons block in November. For those of you who don’t have Noggin, where it previously aired (or don’t have kids), this British cartoon based on the work of Lucy Cousins is an island of [...]

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Obama TV: The Big Question

Why do it? What will he air in that half hour? A few half-baked theories, from a political non-expert: * A massive pretaped ad—along the line of The Man from Hope—to try to close the deal / familiarize himself to last-minute deciders * Allows him the possibility of a Jeremiah Wright-type live speech to address [...]

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Dead Tree Alert: Palin vs. "Palin"

In the current TIME, my column is about a favorite topic at Tuned In these past couple weeks: Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin character, and its advantages and disadvantages for the real Palin. Obviously, there have been scads of political impressions at SNL over the decades. What distinguishes this one is (1) the fact that Palin [...]

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The Ratings Drought: Where's the Next Roseanne?

So we’ve pretty much established that nobody’s watching anything this season. New shows are middling at best in the ratings, relaunched shows like Chuck and ABC’s Wednesday have cratered—even hits like House and Grey’s are not doing so hot. OK, part of this is demographic, social and technological. 500 channels, time-shifting, blah blah blah. There [...]

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The Morning After: Don't Quit Your Night Job

NBC Photo: Dana Edelson Last night, I watched the Weekend Update Thursday edition of Saturday Night Live, immediately after watching The Office (on DVD) and The Daily Show (on Tivo). Woo boy, was that a mistake. I have come to realize the main advantage of putting Saturday Night Live on Saturday night: it does not [...]

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More Obama TV

Barack Obama has finished a deal to air his half-hour campaign pitch on NBC as well Oct. 29, James Hibberd reports. In the process, he will do what Pushing Daisies could not: knock Knight Rider off the air. Hibberd further wonders whether other networks will air Obama’s spot for free, as news coverage, given public [...]